International Law

Two takes on child pornography

Writing in the Globe and Mail (January 5, 2008 — available to subscribers only or I’d give you the link), Christie Blatchford ponders why the punishments for child porn don’t fit the crime. As you can probably guess, she is all for tougher sentencing. “The truth is that the Canadian justice system persistently undervalues the nature of such crimes against the most vulnerable.”

Such is the state of sentencing in child-porn cases in Canada that last February, when Ontario Superior Court Judge Anne Molloy smartly dispatched to jail for a year a 29-year-old man named Andy Kwok — despite the fact he was a first-time offender who had “only” possessed child porn — it was considered a real breakthrough.

Until then, the typical sentence for possessing child-porn was a conditional sentence, or house arrest. But as Judge Molloy noted, “Staying at home for a year or so, unless at work or at school, would not be seen by many deviant personalities as much of a deterrent when weighed against the strength of their urges to access child pornography.” It is this judge’s view that possession of child pornography is one of those offences, arguably rare, where the prospect of jail “can have a strong deterrent affect.”

I’m not so sure that deterrence works at all in such cases. My hunch is that if you like looking at child pornography you are never not going to like looking at child pornography. And an
addiction such as this, linked to one’s sexual drive and sexual preferences, is pretty much impossible to cure.

Then there’s this from the diary of author Alan (The History Boys) Bennett in the most recent London Review of Books (also unavailable online):

2 August. Chris Langham is found guilty of downloading child pornography and remanded for sentencing next month, having been told to expect jail. To imprison someone for looking at or making a copy of something makes me uneasy, even though, as in this case, the facts are not in dispute. And not merely pornography. Last month some Muslim young men were imprisoned for, among other things, looking at or having in their possession a handbook with bomb-making instructions. That makes me uneasy too. Looking is not doing however much a police-led morality would like to equate the two, and would like the public to equate them also. Repellent though child pornography is, I don’t find Mr. Langham’s conduct especially repugnant and am only grateful when I read about such cases that my own inclinations don’t take me down that route. . . . I hope Mr. Langham gets a short sentence and that he will not become the pariah the authorities would like, and that the BBC, not these days noted for its courage, will shortly re-employ him.

(Langham was originally sentenced to ten months in prison but appealed his sentence and was released after serving three-and-a-half months. There was a predictable public outcry.)

Personally I do think sentencing for those responsible for producing child pornography should be tougher. But that’s because such action usually involves sexual assault and other crimes. As for those who are “only looking,” I don’t think the current sentencing regime is too slack. These people need to be identified and face some sanction, but I don’t know if there are good social policy reasons for being any stricter. Does the consumption or viewing of child pornography really encourage the production of more such material? My understanding is that a lot of this stuff is promulgated through free file sharing. Does the viewing of child pornography make the people who view it more inclined to act out their fantasies? Or does it provide an alternative outlet for those fantasies? I’ve heard people argue either way on these issues (see, for example, Slate’s article “Proof that Internet porn prevents rape”), but I just don’t know the answers. As I said earlier, however, I don’t think it makes sense to ramp up sentences in an attempt to deter behaviour that is unlikely to be deterred. And if denunciation is the only factor, is there any crime that carries a greater social stigma already? Even after getting his sentenced reduced, Langham could claim with some fairness that his life had been ruined. What more in the way of denunciation can be done?

Full post as published by Criminal Review on January 08, 2008 (boomark / email).